


Quantum State

by Grundy



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 16:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16288232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grundy/pseuds/Grundy
Summary: Sometimes a new idea changes everything. Celegorm has one for Lúthien.





	Quantum State

**Author's Note:**

  * For [senalishia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/senalishia/gifts).



“You could marry us both, you know.”

Like any other statement Celegorm made, it was simple and straightforward.

“How?” she asked, tracing a curlicue on his bare chest.

She couldn’t pretend it wasn’t tempting.

She has been her young cousin’s guest in Nargothrond – officially, at least, for in truth she's Celegorm’s guest – since the end of the summer.

She and Celegorm have been more than just friends – or whatever it was they had been before, she had never really given it much thought – for some weeks now.

The first kiss had been an accident, one they were fortunate none had witnessed.

The second kiss had been intentional, neither of them able to forget the first one.

The third had ended up turning into much more. Fortunately for her, Celegorm was as honest in bed as anywhere else, so they were still unbound. It would have been impossible to explain to the rest of the world how she had run away to help Beren, the Man she’d given her word to, only to marry one of the princes of the kinslaying Ship-thieves.

If anything, she’d been a bit stunned to discover a prince of the Noldor who made the same distinction between _joining_ and _binding_ – or _bedding and wedding_ , as he would have it – as her own people did. Lúthien was not sure if her father would be relieved or horrified at the idea that she might be distracted from Beren by a son of Fëanor. If Beren came to any harm for her having been delayed, she would find out.

“The Valar insist each elf may have only one mate,” she pointed out.

There are some among her people who will not complete the Journey for that reason alone – so long as no official word has come to them that they may not have more than one, they may live happily as they chose long before any such restriction had been handed down in the West. A few hoped that if they remained in Beleriand, it would allow their mate who had died to walk free from the Halls of the Judge in the West.

“One mate _at a time_ ,” he corrected, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “If one’s mate will not return to life within Arda, one may marry again.”

He didn’t need to add that mortals did not return to life within Arda.

She considered what he’d said, turning it over in her mind.

She knew that Beren would eventually die. All mortals did. It was unavoidable. She would have but a handful of decades with him. And then…

She could hardly think about it, even knowing it was years in the future. The rest of the life of Arda, alone. Without her mate.

But if Celegorm was willing to wait until Beren had gone beyond the circles of the world to marry her… was that really what he was offering?

“You would do that? Marry one who had married before?” she asked cautiously.

She felt him shrug more than she saw it, muscles shifting and rippling beneath her. Though she knew him devoted to Huan, she always thought more of cats than dogs when he was in motion. When thinking was an option, that was.

“Why not? It’s not as if I’d be the first. Wouldn’t even be the first in my family.”

“Your father would object, surely,” she pointed out. “He couldn’t stand your grandfather’s second wife.”

She’s heard plenty about that from her cousins.

“Your father would be somewhat less than pleased as well,” Celegorm snorted. “Seeing how he’s alive and my father isn’t, I think he’d be the bigger worry.”

Lúthien preferred not to linger on the thought that her father might object more strenuously to Celegorm than Beren – she’s certain he was counting on Beren not lasting very long. But Celegorm, being an elf, would return even should he be killed here in Ennor. (She didn’t wish to linger on that thought, either, for it was scarcely less painful than the idea of losing Beren.) They would still have the prospect of a reunion beyond the Sea.

“He wouldn’t be the only one, though, would he?” she asked, poking him for emphasis. “There are plenty among your people who would object to one of their princes marrying a widow.”

“If it would make you happy, it’s well worth gritting my teeth and putting up with whatever stupid people would say.”

“What about your brothers?”

“You think _they’d_ object?”

Lúthien could feel him trying to hold back laughter.

“We all like Indis. Moryo’s quite fierce about it, actually.”

Brushing ever so gently against his mind, Lúthien easily spotted that as fierce as his younger brother might be on the subject, Celegorm was worse. The only one who could get away with disparaging his golden grandmother in his presence was his father – and even then, the more often Fëanor said anything, the closer his son’s unquestioning loyalty came to its breaking point.

“You haven’t said what _you_ think,” Celegorm said quietly.

“I think…”

She considered it, really and truly.

She could keep her word to Beren, and have Celegorm as well. Her father might complain, but it solved several problems if she married one of the princes of the Noldor. (Particularly the problem of the Silmaril. She and Beren will be getting the damn thing, because there’s no other way forward. She hasn’t overlooked the Oath.)

“I think it’s a very good idea.”

She’d never seen Celegorm so pleased before. (He looked a lot more pleased after he’d sent her walking among Elbereth’s stars.)

When she left Nargothrond, she was wearing a silver ring poor Celebrimbor had no idea why his uncle had insisted he make.

\---

It went wrong, of course.

She’d remembered the Oath. She’d overlooked the Doom.

_All things they begin well_ …

It hurt to think that it was her uncle who handed down that prophecy. The same uncle who was offering her a choice – a terrible, terrible choice.

She could lose Beren to death now, before they’ve had a chance to marry – his spirit waited in that section of the Halls for the souls of the Aftercomers, lingering only to say farewell, for he’d known she would follow. Or she could have him returned to Beleriand, to the life they should have had – but at the price of following him beyond the circles of the world when death next claimed him.  

She could now only have one, Beren or Celegorm, not both.  She’s being asked to break a promise to one or the other. And she had no way to speak with them before she made her choice.

On the one hand, there was her word to Celegorm, and all the Ages he would have to live with the consequences of her breaking it. He had ordered Huan to protect her, and Huan had died doing so. On the other, there was all Beren had gone through to win her father’s approval of their engagement, with her encouragement and confidence of success.

She listened cautiously for the Song, wondering which was the wiser choice. Her heart could argue for either.

Possibilities flashed before her – sons, granddaughters, fate and doom…

_The other now we will try_ : _through sorrow to find joy; or freedom, at the least_.

Odd that that should be the thing that struck her now, out of all the Music.

Through sorrow…

Her uncle, she realized, expected her to choose Celegorm. He was no less adamant than her father about what was right for her – and that a mortal was not it. He expected her to turn down his offer and return to life without Beren, be it in Aman or in Beleriand.

For Namo, the choice was easy: she would pick Celegorm.

For her, the choice was suddenly clear.

“I will have Beren,” she announced, her voice ringing clearly.

She could feel the change in the Song as she said it, new variations suddenly beckoning a few measures hence, new possibilities.

If a dead mortal could return from Mandos, perhaps an exiled maia could return from beyond the circles of the world…

She’s still aiming for both, no matter what obstacles fate may throw in her way. It’s just going to take a little longer than she expected. 


End file.
